counterclockwise

I’m safely ensconced in Tacuati now, where I’ll hopefully remain for some months. I had a pretty pleasant bus trip, and got to see more of the scenery than I did on my previous night voyages. That’s unfortunately more than I can say for my suitcases, which got motor oil leaked on them. But the good news is that only one item (a pair of fairly impractical white Capri pants) will be unsalvageable for daily wear.

Just as well. I was needing new garden pants, anyway. And I do have some very ambitious gardening plans. If all goes well, I’ll be passing many grubby hours in those capris.

I´m going to leave my phone number up for another week, in light of the technical difficulties people have been having getting in touch.

The Guaraní word of the day is ao poi, which is generally used to describe the traditional hand-embroidered Paraguayan dress shirt. Its literal breakdown is ao, meaning clothing, and poi, meaning fine. We were all wearing ao poi in our training class photo, posted a few entries back.

Well, this weekend in Asunción draws to a close. I’ve gotten a lot done. I’ve got a hammock now and the seeds to start one rocking vegetable garden. My phone is programmed to annoy me as little as possible, my paperwork is up to date with the central office, and I’ve tested and re-tested my new bank card. I’ve gotten a little better sense of how this particular city is laid out, and gotten to know volunteers from a wide variety of other places.

All told, a pretty successful trip. There were some things I just couldn’t do, like buy my refrigerator, but I got the most important stuff done. Now it just remains to wish my training mates happy trails and hit the road. I’ll be arriving in site just a few hours ahead of some VIPs visiting for the 40th anniversary of PC Paraguay, so I should have a very interesting first day in site.

The Guaraní word of the day is opa, meaning finished. Training opa, vacation opa. Now it’s time to work.

My new phone number is 595 971 (redacted) if you’re calling from the US.

If you’d like, you can send free text messages from personal.com.py (look for Envio de Mensajes in the left-hand menu). Then choose 0971 in the drop down box and give the last six digits of the number.

I’m going to take this bit of information off the Internet in another week or so. If you need my number after that, you’re welcome to e-mail me and ask.

This weekend is going to be crazy, but I’ll try to get my battery charged and be outside of parties for at least a little while.

After a few short weeks, we’re now leaving our training community. We’ve had some great times here, enjoyed some outstanding hospitality, and spoken more Spanish than we ever thought we could. It’s been frustrating from time to time, but it’s also been a tremendous amount of fun. Las Piedras has been great as a community and our families have been wonderful as individuals.

With their help, we’re ready to head out into Paraguay and begin our service. We’ll be back for an in-service training session in three months, and we all hope we can speak a little better, understand a little more, and share some interesting stories.

Pictured below is my training class, G-24 RED. From left, we´re Andrew, Will, me, Brennan, Betsy, David, and Stuart.

The Guaraní word of the day is sy, meaning mother. Che sy has been everything I could ask for in a host mom, and I’ll miss her.

Now that I’ve visited my site, I have good news relating to mail access. I should be able to get letters and care packages directly from my community instead of relying on the central Peace Corps office, many hours away in Asuncion. My new address doesn’t have any numbers; that’s normal for rural Paraguay. In communities like mine, everybody knows everybody by surname if not given name. The post officer can find me without a street number.

Speaking of numbers and communication, I should be getting my cell phone in another few weeks. The provider that most Peace Corps volunteers use has an antenna within a stone’s throw of my apartment-to-be. I’m told that the signal is pretty good so long as the power is online. Incoming calls are cheap, but it is pretty expensive to place calls. Ten minutes will cost me about a day’s wages. Depending on your personal level of technical phobia and desire to make lots of international or long distance calls, you might want to look into Skype or a competing VOIP company.

And finally, what of web access? It’s going to be OK. There are no commercial providers in town, but I think I should be able to get occasional access through the office of a good-natured local government worker. There’s also a commercial ciber in the next major town, Horqueta. Between the two, I hope to keep this blog and my e-mail running at a moderate clip.

The Guaraní word of the day is mburucuja, meaning passionfruit. They grow really well here on nice shady vines. Planting an arbol of them above your hammock is going to be a very popular home improvement project this cycle. I think I’ve got a pretty good spot in my site. The word mburucuja is quite easily confused with the Guaraní word for cat. We’re still chuckling at the trainee who excitedly told his family that he ate lots of cat on a recent road trip.

I just got back from my future site visit. I like it up there. It’s really peaceful, my co-op counterparts seem organized and ready to work, and once again I’ve won the host family lottery. The bus routes are brutal, but if that’s the worst thing I have to worry about then life is going to be pretty sweet.

On account of being pretty zonked right now, no pictures, but there will be plenty more to come.

 The Guaraní word of the day is takuati, aptly enough. It means cane. It’s applied to sugar cane and bamboo in a neologic sense, although in pre-Colombian times it signified a native species of reed.